PBS高端访谈:对2020年弹劾的展望

Hari Sreenivasan: Joining us now for more on the impeachment¹ that's coming in the 2020 campaign is special correspondent Jeff Greenfield, who is in Santa Barbara. So here we are, finally. Nancy Pelosi took some time. She said that she wouldn't do this until she was ready. She says now she's ready to hand it over to the Senate. What do we know? What do we not know about what changed her mind?

Jeff Greenfield: Well, we know what changed her mind is a certain amount of pressure and the threat that the Senate might just scrap² the whole idea. But it's what we don't know that I think is the dominant³ issue. We do not know really what the impeachment will look like. We do not know whether or not witnesses will be called, whether or not if McConnell says no witnesses, there will be four Republican senators to defect and insist that witnesses come and that documents be provided. We do not know if the Senate votes that whether the White House will invoke⁴ executive privilege on some key potential witnesses, like former National Security Adviser⁵ Bolton or Chief of Staff Mulvaney. We do not know what would happen if the senators try to override⁶ a ruling by the chief justice who presides over the center on issues like admitting witnesses. So there's a range of things we don't know about how this impeachment will play out.

Hari Sreenivasan: What is the White House, I guess and its allies, do with the possibility of any of these senators who defect from the party line?

Jeff Greenfield: First thing they do is what we've already seen this week. There's enormous pressure on Republicans in the House and Senate to to stay with the president on everything. When Senator Mike Lee of Utah, very conservative, objected to the kind of briefings that they were getting after the strike in Iraq, Lou Dobbs, one of the president's champions, called the senator a 'Benedict Arnold.' So that's the first thing. Put enormous political pressure, whether you can put political pressure on senators like Susan Collins and Cory Gardner, who are up for reelection in swing states, that's an interesting question. And the second thing, as I mentioned, was they can try to invoke executive privilege and tell people like John Bolton and Mulvaney, you can't testify. And we don't know whether Bolton in particular would defy the White House. It's gonna be an interesting couple of weeks.

Hari Sreenivasan: Yeah. So here we are finally. The couple of weeks are now in January of 2020. We've got Iowa and New Hampshire just around the corner. And it seems that wherever I look, there's new polling data. Oh, this person's up by two. This person is up by six. Is this worth paying attention to?

Jeff Greenfield: You know, I've often said that polling is the crack cocaine⁷ of political journalists. I mean, you look at the headlines, you know. "Sanders surging!" And then you look and you realize the first four candidates in Iowa are separated by five points, with only 40 percent of Iowans saying they've made up their mind. And I haven't even mentioned the fact that two billionaires out there, Steyer and Bloomberg, are spending like crazy. Steyer's picked up some support in South Carolina and Nevada. Bloomberg is spending two hundred million dollars, most of it in states that don't have primaries for a month or more. So it's a completely un-analyzable situation if you're trying to figure out, where do we go from here?

Hari Sreenivasan: If there are people like Mr. Bloomberg contesting something further down the line, what does this do to how important those early states were or are?

Jeff Greenfield: It has the potential to completely undermine the enormous over-coverage of those early states. And I'm sure for some of those politicians in those states, they're worried about breaking their rice bowl, as they say in China. They're worried that if Bloomberg, and I guess Steyer, demonstrates that you can skip those early states and with an infusion⁸ of huge amounts of money change the dynamic of the whole campaign, I think in future years, those states may lose some of their clout⁹.

Hari Sreenivasan: All right. Jeff Greenfield joining us from Santa Barbara, thanks so much.

Jeff Greenfield: OK.

哈里·斯里尼瓦桑：特派记者杰夫·格林菲尔德发回的有关2020年弹劾展望的更多报道。杰夫现在正在圣巴巴拉市。好，我们开始步入正题。南希·佩洛西还是花了些功夫的。她说她要等准备好之后再开始干。她说现在她已经准备好将材料递交给参议院了。我们知道什么呢？是不是有什么我们不了解的事情促使她改变了想法呢？

杰夫·格林菲尔德：咋说呢，我们了解到，让她改变主意的是巨大的压力和威胁，因为参议院威胁说可能会一笔勾销。但我觉得我们不知道的事情才是主导因素。我们不太清楚弹劾会是什么样子。我们不知道是否会叫证人出席，如果麦康奈尔说不需要证人的话，还会不会有证人出席。会有4个共和党参议员叛变说证人会来，也会提供一些文件。我们不知道参议院的投票结果是不是白宫可以行使一些关键潜在证人的行政特权，比如前国家安全顾问博尔顿或者幕僚长马尔瓦尼。我们不知道如果参议员们试图凌驾于司法部长的判决之上，那会发生什么。毕竟司法部长要主持认可证人等问题。有一系列事情是我们不知道在弹劾过程中会如何上演的。

哈里·斯里尼瓦桑：在面对参议员们可能变节的情况下，白宫及其盟友会怎样做呢？

杰夫·格林菲尔德：他们做的第一件事儿就是我们本周已经了解到的那样。众议院和参议院的共和党们受到了巨大的压力，因为要跟特朗普总统站在一边。犹他州的参议员麦克·李是个保守派，他反对伊拉克袭击后的那种简报，而特朗普总统的一个拥护者多布斯称这名参议员是“贝内迪克特·阿诺德”。所以，这是他们做的第一件事。施加大量的政治压力，你可以将政治压力施加在参议员身上，比如苏珊·科林斯、科里·加德纳。他们准备在摇摆州重新竞选，这是一个有趣的问题。第二件事，就像我提过的那样：可以试图行使行政特权，告诉约翰·博尔顿和马尔瓦尼你不能作证。我们不知道博尔顿会不会蔑视白宫权威。这几周会很有意思。

哈里·斯里尼瓦桑：那么现在已经到了这个节骨眼了，2020年1月也已经过了几周了。爱荷华州和新罕布什尔都要开始投票了。似乎无论看向哪里，都有新的票选数据。哇哦，这个人的票涨了2点，那个人涨了6点。这个值得关注吗？

杰夫·格林菲尔德：大家都说票选是政治类记者的可卡因。毕竟每到这时候，头条都是“桑德斯崛起了！”这种。你观察数据的时候会意识到爱荷华州的4名候选人差了5点，而只有40%的爱荷华民众表示已经下定决心了。我甚至还没有提有2个亿万富翁也参选了——斯太尔和彭博，他们都砸了不少钱。斯太尔在南卡州和内华达获得了一些支持。彭博斥资2亿美元，其中大多数钱都花在了至少一个月没有举行初选的几个州。所以，现在的形式完全没法分析，如果要弄明白的话，要从哪里着手呢？

哈里·斯里尼瓦桑：如果有彭博这样的人一路打下去，会对早期几个州的重要性产生何种影响呢？

杰夫·格林菲尔德：有可能会彻底破坏对这几个早期州的大幅报道。我肯定这些州的某些政客会担心丢掉饭碗，在中国人们会这么说。他们担心如果彭博和斯太尔说可以跳过这些早期州的话，那么太多的斥资会改变整个竞选运动的局势。我想在未来数年中，这些州可能失去部分势力。

哈里·斯里尼瓦桑：好的。感谢杰夫·格林菲尔德从圣芭芭拉发回的报道。

杰夫·格林菲尔德：客气啦。

1 impeachment   

n.弹劾；控告；怀疑

参考例句：

• Impeachment is considered a drastic measure in the United States.在美国，弹劾被视为一种非常激烈的措施。
• The verdict resulting from his impeachment destroyed his political career.他遭弹劾后得到的判决毁了他的政治生涯。

2 scrap   

n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废

参考例句：

• A man comes round regularly collecting scrap.有个男人定时来收废品。
• Sell that car for scrap.把那辆汽车当残品卖了吧。

3 dominant   

adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因

参考例句：

• The British were formerly dominant in India.英国人从前统治印度。
• She was a dominant figure in the French film industry.她在法国电影界是个举足轻重的人物。

4 invoke   

v.求助于(神、法律)；恳求，乞求

参考例句：

• Let us invoke the blessings of peace.让我们祈求和平之福。
• I hope I'll never have to invoke this clause and lodge a claim with you.我希望我永远不会使用这个条款向你们索赔。

5 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

6 override   

vt.不顾，不理睬，否决；压倒，优先于

参考例句：

• The welfare of a child should always override the wishes of its parents.孩子的幸福安康应该永远比父母的愿望来得更重要。
• I'm applying in advance for the authority to override him.我提前申请当局对他进行否决。

7 cocaine   

n.可卡因，古柯碱（用作局部麻醉剂）

参考例句：

• That young man is a cocaine addict.那个年轻人吸食可卡因成瘾。
• Don't have cocaine abusively.不可滥服古柯碱。

8 infusion   

n.灌输

参考例句：

• Old families need an infusion of new blood from time to time.古老的家族需要不时地注入新鲜血液。
• Careful observation of the infusion site is necessary.必须仔细观察输液部位。

9 clout   

n.用手猛击；权力，影响力

参考例句：

• The queen may have privilege but she has no real political clout.女王有特权，但无真正的政治影响力。
• He gave the little boy a clout on the head.他在那小男孩的头部打了一下。